Pete Ashby from www.asaleader.com discusses specific traits of loner leaders and their possessiveness in relation to key decisions. Are you "tight" when it comes to sharing power?

(Friday, December 14th, 2012) United Kingdom - Pete Ashby, top UK leadership coach who heads up asaleader.com says: “I see the term ”loner“ as describing an attitude of mind. And I’d say that loners are pretty ”tight“ when it comes to sharing power, especially in relation to key decisions.”

“They can come across as very consultative and open, but when it comes to what they see as key decisions they become possessive and guard them ferociously as ”theirs“.”

“When you ask the advice of your Board or top team about a key issue where you have a personal position that you have declared to at least some of them, how open are you to letting them influence you?”

Pete Ashby goes on to say: “To me, this is a killer question. My view is that a large number of the best CEOs that I have worked with are not very open to being influenced in the moment.”

“If this includes you, may I suggest that you would become still more exceptional as a leader if you would give yourself permission to change your mind, there and then, in front of your Exec team or Board, and feel able to make a virtue of this by declaring openly that your thinking has moved on as a result of their advice.”

Pete, founder of the popular leadership behaviours blog tells of how for “key decisions, I’m a great believer in offering up a proposition on the basis that what you want is a tentative decision that you will then take away and reflect on, knowing that you won’t have long before deciding whether to firm it up or retrace your steps.”

"The great merit of a tentative decision is that people know where you stand at that point in time – and yet your hands aren’t tied.’

He then says that: “the best way of managing this is not to back off too much from the big decisions, because it must be right that you as CEO should ”drive“ whatever decisions you want to drive.”

“Instead, the proposition is that you should try to regard these big decisions as rather more of an incremental process, so that you can give others as well as yourself time to reflect on a tentative decision before you come back and decide whether to press all of the buttons and go ahead on the basis that ”this is it“.”

And finally Pete asserts: “If you are a loner leader, just think how much it could support you in strengthening the unity of your Board and top team if you felt able to take on some of these behaviours.”

"It will feel a little strange at first, but the pay-off – in terms of business performance – is potentially huge.’